Part 2:
My telling of my first journey to South Korea:
If you didn't read the first part, then it's right here :D ----> https://steemit.com/life/@jinxz/my-first-journey-to-south-korea
Anyway I was so lucky, to get to work in Gangnam YMCA and probably many of you know Gangnam, from the song "PSY- Gangnam style". But Gangnam is mostly known for being a rich neighborhood, so I was a little nervous about how the parents would be and how they would behave in the YMCA. I was very lucky that one of the girls, that I lived with also got to work there. Even though she worked with the more older kids in another building and I worked with the more younger kids, it was still very nice that we could go together there.
I was also very lucky to be the helper in the most amazing class, with the most amazing teacher and I just want to let you all know... At this time, I had no idea how to speak Korean. I could understand it very little, because I had watched some Korean Dramas. But I would said at this time, I only maybe knew 10% of the language and the teacher in that class couldn't speak or understand that much English. But we still made it work and there was a teacher in the class room beside mine, that actually knew a little English, so she could help us once in a while, if we were completely lost about want the other one meant.
I actually helped in 3 different classes, when I was teaching English. But else I had my main class, where I taught swimming, gymnastics, math and funny enough sometimes basic Korean. I sometime also helped when they had special class, like music or if they had to perform something for their parents. Sometimes we were also on some trips, like skiing trips for about 2 days or we would go out to the Zoo or many other things.
I also had some extra things to do on the side, like I had to take a school bus and get 3 boys in another school and that was actually really hard, because I couldn't talk with them and sometimes it was only 2 boys, I need to get. But it was not every time, they told me how many I needed to get. So many times, I was just hoping that the other boys knew and could tell me in some way. Later on I actually found out that they could speak a little English, because after some time. The other extra things was to help teach English to them. Together with my roommate, who also picked up 3 girls with the school bus and we were helping another teacher to teach them English.
Now it probably sounds like I had a lot to do and I did had a lot of things, but it didn't feel that hard. Because I had so much fun doing it and I didn't really think about the time that much. I also had some free classes, which I decided to use with the kids and help the teacher, when they had to eat a lunch. So because I decided to use my time with them, I got really quickly close to all of the kids and the teachers. My roommate decide to go to the office, where our 2 contact person from the YMCA worked. So she didn't get to have that close relationship with her kids or teachers, which made me feel really bad for her and I don't really understand until now why she didn't stay with them and got more closer. (So just to let you know, if you are going out and work like I did. Try and help the best way you can, even though you are not sure want to do or say, just try it... Because they really appreciate it, instead of you just walking away or just look at them doing it).
Some of the days, I also got of work really early, but I decide to ask if there was someone else we could help or do something. So they gave us a piano class for some of the days and on the Fridays we had like a special music class, where they would mixed some of the kids of the smaller classes in one class and do the same with the bigger kids. But at the same time, there was a class for the kids we picked up by the school bus, where we would teach them acting. So I would teach the acting class for the first hour and then my roommate, would teach the music class and after that first hour, we would chance classes. So we both got to try and teach the kids defend things. In the class with the music, it was first the smaller kids and then after it was the bigger kids.
Again thank you so much for reading and again if you have any questions please just ask!
I probably only going to make one more part to this and after that, I will write about something else. But it will still be about Korea for the most part...
So see you soon!